Exporter::Tiny::Manual::Etc(3pm)

Utility Functions

Exporter::Tiny is itself an exporter!

These functions are really for internal use, but can be exported if you need them:

mkopt(\@array)

Similar to "mkopt" from Data::OptList. It doesn't support all the fancy options that Data::OptList does ("moniker", "require_unique", "must_be" and "name_test") but runs about 50% faster.

mkopt_hash(\@array)

Similar to "mkopt_hash" from Data::OptList. See also "mkopt".

History

Type::Library had a bunch of custom exporting code which poked coderefs into its caller's stash. It needed this to be something more powerful than most exporters so that it could switch between exporting Moose, Mouse and Moo-compatible objects on request. Sub::Exporter would have been capable, but had too many dependencies for the Type::Tiny project.

Meanwhile Type::Utils, Types::TypeTiny and Test::TypeTiny each used the venerable Exporter.pm. However, this meant they were unable to use the features like Sub::Exporter-style function renaming which I'd built into Type::Library:

   ## import "Str" but rename it to "String".
   use Types::Standard "Str" => { -as => "String" };

And so I decided to factor out code that could be shared by all Type-Tiny's exporters into a single place: Exporter::TypeTiny.

As of version 0.026, Exporter::TypeTiny was also made available as Exporter::Tiny, distributed independently on CPAN. CHOCOLATEBOY had convinced me that it was mature enough to live a life of its own.

As of version 0.030, Type-Tiny depends on Exporter::Tiny and Exporter::TypeTiny is being phased out.

Obligatory Exporter Comparison

Exporting is unlikely to be your application's performance bottleneck, but nonetheless here are some comparisons.

Comparative sizes according to Devel::SizeMe:

   Exporter                     217.1Kb
   Sub::Exporter::Progressive   263.2Kb
   Exporter::Tiny               267.7Kb
   Exporter + Exporter::Heavy   281.5Kb
   Exporter::Renaming           406.2Kb
   Sub::Exporter                701.0Kb

Performance exporting a single sub:

              Rate     SubExp    ExpTiny SubExpProg      ExpPM
SubExp      2489/s         --       -56%       -85%       -88%
ExpTiny     5635/s       126%         --       -67%       -72%
SubExpProg 16905/s       579%       200%         --       -16%
ExpPM      20097/s       707%       257%        19%         --

(Exporter::Renaming globally changes the behaviour of Exporter.pm, so could not be included in the same benchmarks.)

(Non-Core) Dependencies:

   Exporter                    -1
   Exporter::Renaming           0
   Exporter::Tiny               0
   Sub::Exporter::Progressive   0
   Sub::Exporter                3

Features:

                                      ExpPM   ExpTiny SubExp  SubExpProg
 Can export code symbols............. Yes     Yes     Yes     Yes      
 Can export non-code symbols......... Yes     Yes                      
 Groups/tags......................... Yes     Yes     Yes     Yes      
 Export by regexp.................... Yes     Yes                      
 Bang prefix......................... Yes     Yes                      
 Allows renaming of subs.............         Yes     Yes     Maybe    
 Install code into scalar refs.......         Yes     Yes     Maybe    
 Can be passed an "into" parameter...         Yes     Yes     Maybe    
 Can be passed an "installer" sub....         Yes     Yes     Maybe    
 Config avoids package variables.....                 Yes              
 Supports generators.................         Yes     Yes              
 Sane API for generators.............         Yes     Yes              
 Unimport............................         Yes

(Certain Sub::Exporter::Progressive features are only available if Sub::Exporter is installed.)